


After Hours (You're All Mine)

by cecilia095



Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Bartenders, Boss/Employee Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 04:27:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6550957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilia095/pseuds/cecilia095
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hey, try not to fall in love with me on the job, huh? Ha! Kidding! Seriously, though, you're holding that tray all wrong." <b>AU.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	After Hours (You're All Mine)

**Author's Note:**

> Basically a 'The Gang Are All Dysfunctional Bartenders AU' because I felt like it. You're welcome.
> 
> Also: I've always known the bar as Clyde's Bar but apparently it's now The Griffin according to Tuesday's episode (300 Feet) so in case you haven't seen that but you're reading this, that's where that rando bar name is from. :)

She's desperate for a job, and that's the only -- _THE ONLY_! -- reason she applies at The Griffin.

"Is Griffin  _your name_?", Jess asks, her glasses falling down her nose. The owner is interviewing her behind the counter, no clipboard in sight, just a dirty dish rag slung over his shoulder. (Unprofessional? Check. Kind of weirdly arousing when he slaps the dirty dish rag onto the counter and smirks at her? Also check.)

"The Griffin is... Well... I don't even know what it is. We usually just call it 'the bar', but I'm trying to conduct a professional interview here. Are you any good at making drinks?"

"Oh,  _am I_?", she laughs, wiggling her eyebrows. "Um, actually, the only drink I know how to make is a chocolate milkshake, but I learn fast!"

He laughs at that, and Jess tries her best to be  _professional_ and not acknowledge how nice his laugh is. He's got scruff on his chin and he's wearing plaid (yuck), but with a little cleaning up, he'd be smoking hot. 

"It says here on your resume that you're a teacher," he says, lifting the paper up to her as if she didn't just hand it to him ten minutes before. "Why are you out looking for a bar job? I mean, I like ya', I wanna hire ya', but you're a  _teacher_."

" _Was_ ," she says matter-of-factly, her index finger pointing at him. "I don't know what I am right now, and I saw on Craigslist that you guys were hiring so I just... took a chance. Teaching was killing me."

"Killing you?", he asks, with intrigue in his eyes. "It's what, bossing around little kids all day? How hard can that be?"

Jess leans a little further over the counter and smacks her lips together. "I'm -- I'm sorry, I never got your name."

"Nick," he says. "Nick Miller."

"Nick Miller, have you ever given your all to everything  _just_ to get shut down every single time?"

He lets out this bitter laugh, and then he goes, "Uh, how about every single one of my relationships from the age of sixteen to now?"

"Well, that's how I feel about teaching," Jess says. "So... when do I start?"

He sets down her resume on the counter, and she tries not to cringe when she watches the corner of the paper land in a puddle of spilt beer. "Today."

—

"Hey, try not to fall in love with me on the job, huh? Ha! Kidding! Seriously, though, you're holding that tray all wrong."

Jess is caught off-guard, and she jumps when Nick slides a hand onto the small of her back, freezing at the contact. 

"Hey, no, I was -- I was making a joke, Jess. You're just... You were staring at me like I had three heads, and now you're struggling with that tray. Can I help you with that?"

"It's a tray, it's not even heavy, I just --" She huffs in defeat and sets the tray with ten shot glasses on it down onto the countertop. "Who orders ten tequila shots before noon?"

"That would be Sid," Nick says, pointing to a bearded customer in his sixties sitting at the way corner of the bar. "Sid, this is Jess, and she's new, so cut her some slack with the shots, would ya'?"

Sid nods and goes, "Sorry, kid!", and then Jess just waves at him.

"Is it just me and you today?", Jess asks him, and Nick scrunches his nose and shakes his head. For a second there, Jess wouldn't have minded. One-on-one with a cute bartender-slash-owner who's already been... hands-on with his demonstrations? Not a bad first shift.

"Cece and Schmidt are both scheduled to work, but they're: A. Never on time, B. My friends, so they think being late is cute and don't take my yelling seriously, and C. Probably going at it like animals in the office right now. You'll see what I mean later."

Jess raises her eyebrows and leaves the shots to Nick, taking some other guy's order and then running off to find out where they keep the beer back there.

—

"I'm Cece," Cece says, tying her apron and then reaching a hand out to shake Jess's. "You're  _super_ new, aren't you?"

"I'm Jess." Jess sets down the bottle of Absinthe she's holding and goes, "Could you tell?"

"Well I mean,  _that_ doesn't go in  _that_ ," says Cece, and then she laughs, taking the Absinthe out of Jess's hand and grabbing her another bottle instead. "Can I be upfront with you, Jess?"

Jess nods. "Absolutely."

"Working here kind of sucks. I just do it because of the tips. And because if I quit, Schmidt and I would have to stop having sex in the office, and honestly? That's kind of what keeps our relationship solid."

Jess widens her eyes at Cece's bluntness, and then asks, "Wait, so you -- The bartenders all date each other here or something?" (She's not thinking about Nick, okay?)

"Ha. 'Date'. What Schmidt and I do isn't  _dating_. Once he tried taking me to brunch, and I'm pretty sure I made him drive all the way to like, Utah before we found a diner because I was too embarrassed to even be seen with him in the general California region."

"Someone say 'Schmidt'?" Someone -- Jess assumes  _Schmidt_ \-- leans into both of them and winks. "Cecelia, I know you're in love with me, but the constant name-dropping while I'm not around has got to stop. You're lookin' a little clingy now, honey."

Cece turns on the soda hose and squirts it right in Schmidt's direction, and then he freaks out about how she absolutely  _ruined_ his button-down. 

He viciously wipes at his shirt with the rag Cece hands him until it's clean, and then he reaches a hand out to Jess. "Well, hello! You look a hell of a lot nicer than  _this one_ ," he says, snickering in Cece's direction. "I'm Schmidt."

"I've heard," Jess says, laughing under her breath. "Jess Day. I'm still getting the hang of things."

"So is Cece," he says, and Cece hits him on the arm. "What? You're the most beautiful woman in the world, but you can't mix drinks for crap."

"I've been working here longer than you have," Cece says through gritted teeth.

"And yet I'm so much more talented at this whole thing. Go figure!", Schmidt smirks.

"They botherin' you?", Nick asks, approaching Jess from behind. Again: He slides his hand onto the small of her back and she can't help but wonder if that's his thing, if he does it to Cece too, if it's just  _instinct_. She keeps quiet about it though, biting down on her lip and shaking her head 'no'. "If they do, you can tattle on them, I don't care. I've known Schmidt since he was in diapers. Freshman year of college, I mean. He wet the bed a lot."

"Gee, thanks for sharing  _that one_ , Nicholas! I'm going to cry in your office, and Cece's coming with me."

"No she's not, man," Nick says, shaking his head. "You know, if you're going to bone in my office, be subtle about it."

"Fine. Can we both take our fifteen?", Schmidt asks, and Nick shakes his head again and tells him to get back to work.

"They're so annoying. I just hired them because they're idiots who'd literally work for free booze. How are you doin', Jess?"

Jess bites down on her lip and slides over a concoction in Nick's direction. "Malibu Bay Breeze," she says proudly. "I'm learning."

"The easiest drink to make," he says teasingly. "I'm proud of ya'. Hey, look, so if you don't mind me asking... You were a teacher. What happened?"

"I was working my way up to Vice Principal, actually," she corrects him, pouting at the words. It was a stupid time in her life, and stupid Becky Cavatappi  _sucks_ and Coolidge Middle School can suck a fat one. "I did everyone else's job for years and then they gave my dream job to someone else. Life sucks, man."

"If that isn't the truest statement I've heard all day," Nick says with a laugh. He gets distracted for a second, looking away from Jess and onto two people walking into the bar. The both of them are in LAPD clothes from head to toe, and they yell out his name. "Jess, come meet my more normal friends. Cece and Schmidt were a bad first impression of me."

Jess follows Nick to the other side of the bar and watches him wordlessly grab his friends a beer each. "Aly, Winston, this is my new hire, Jess," he says, nodding over to her. "Jess, this is Aly, and that's Winston. I just realized I didn't have to clarify by pointing at them, you could've figured out which one was which, but I did and I'm sorry to all parties involved."

Winston sips his beer and waves a hand at Nick. "I can totally pass as an 'Aly'. Hey, Jess. How's the bar treating you? Better question: How's my man Nick treating you? He's not making you do dirty work, right? Word of advice? Never let him convince you it's your turn to clean the bathroom. It's always Nick's turn."

Aly nods in agreement. "Rumor has it you were the one who drew that penis graffiti on the stall, Nick."

"Was. Not. Me! I'm more artistic than that, you guys. I know how to draw a proper dick."

Jess blushes and looks at Winston's already-empty beer. "C-Can I get you another?"

He hands her his empty one and nods. "Thanks. You're already a better bartender than the rest of these clowns. They never pay attention to us!"

"We drink for  _free_ ," Aly points out, setting a hand in Winston's lap. "You do realize we don't even know what the checks look like here, right?"

Winston widens his eyes. "Wait, they have those?!"

—

The next day of work is harder. It's a Friday, and she's scheduled for the night shift, and even though Nick tells her she's doing fine every ten minutes, she still panics and drops an entire bottle of Fireball all over the counter and the floor.

"Hey, come on, don't -- It's okay, Jess," Nick assures her, calling out for someone to grab a broom and a dustpan. "And... they're not paying attention. Where are Cece and Schmidt?"

Jess shrugs. "I can clean up a broken bottle, Nick, I'm not a baby."

"Just lookin' out for ya'," he says, nodding at Jess and then grabbing the broom and dustpan himself, handing them over to her. "I'll be back. Are you okay if I leave you alone for five minutes, tops?"

Jess doesn't let the fact that she's Ridiculously Overwhelmed consume her, she just nods calmly and goes, "Absolutely!", and then Nick races into his office and leaves her alone with twenty drunken, shouting men demanding more Gin.

He comes out eleven minutes later with an obviously sexed-up Cece and Schmidt, and Jess pretends not to notice. 

"It really is so stupid," Cece says, walking up to Jess with a rag slung over her shoulder, taking the beer she's struggling to open out of Jess's hand. "It's like... We work together, and we're not supposed to be attracted to each other, but we are. I try to play by the rules: -- No serving drinks after 4 A.M., no laughing when a customer flashes me from over the bar, and no boning my co-worker. You're probably someone who follows rules, right?"

Jess really can't argue with that. She pushes her glasses up further onto her nose. "I've been known to break one, once. I sang a little too loud past midnight at a Girl Scout campfire. The way my troop leader yelled at me haunted me for years."

"Yeah?" Cece laughs, genuinely laughs at Jess's horrific Girl Scout Campfire Fiasco of 1989, and then she puts a hand on her shoulder. "Don't ever sleep with any of these clowns, okay? It's not worth it."

—

Jess doesn't sleep with any of these clowns. Schmidt? Off-limits, a Big Fat No. Javier? He hit on her once, but then he apologized and said, "Big eyes aren't my thing, man!". Big Bob? Not her type. Super nice guy, though. He told her where to buy cool hair gel and he always has cookies. Nick? She doesn't sleep with him either, but whenever they work together, it's hard to not think about it.

—

One day it's a Tuesday, and it's slow, so it's just Jess and Nick on the night shift. (They'll call Cece in if they need help, but she begs Nick not to because she's on a date with some Indian millionaire her mom wants her to marry. Nick says it's cool, he'll call in Schmidt instead, but Schmidt texts back the words:  **Can't. On couch crying over Cece and the Indian millionaire. Is this what death feels like?** ).

"You got a boyfriend, Jess?", Nick asks, catching Jess off-guard. She clumsily drops the empty glass she's cleaning, and Nick smoothly catches it, smirking at her. "Sorry, didn't mean to distract ya'. You were really in the zone there."

She blushes, setting down her wet rag onto the counter. "My boyfriend broke up with me when I quit my job. Something about me being a 'loser', even though I supported him for six years while he was 'trying to make it as an artist'. Dumb, right?"

"The dumbest," Nick says, and then he holds up a finger to her and tells her to hold on for a second. "You need a shot. Try this."

Jess protests, something about her morals and how drinking on the job probably never ends well. (She remembers overhearing a story about Nick and Schmidt getting drunk and stealing a customer's baby, and she's really not about kidnapping someone's child tonight.) 

"Jess, it's almost Last Call, just -- You need a drink. Come on. I'll take one too."

So she does. She takes a swig of this shot that burns the back of her throat, and Nick, the seasoned pro, laughs at her as he gulps his down. "Better?"

"No. I'm still thinking about my ex, because  _you_ brought him up. Thanks, Miller."

Nick stops wiping down the counter he started cleaning and just stares at her, and Jess just shakes her head and goes, "What?" all coldly. 

"Nothin', Jess. You're just -- Okay, this isn't the alcohol, because I had... Well, that shot wasn't my first, but I'm not  _drunk_."

"Go on," she says, leaning forward and grabbing the rag out of his hands, cleaning the counter herself. It's her way of distracting herself so she doesn't have to look at him when he says whatever it is he's about to say.

"Your ex is fucking stupid, I'm sorry," he says bluntly. Jess pretends not to be fazed by it; pretends that she isn't gulping and getting nervous about the way Nick is looking at her right now. "I mean, the second you walked into The Griffin... You're just... You know."

Jess finishes cleaning the countertop in silence, and then when she's tying up the trash bags to take outside to the dumpster, she puts a hand on Nick's back and goes, "'Night, Miller."

He says, "Goodnight" back to her, and then before she can walk away, he stops her. "Wait!"

This is it. This is like... Okay, Jess watches a shitton of romantic movies. Most of them have horrible, 'Boy-Doesn't-End-Up-With-Girl' endings, because she likes to torture herself, but there's a few that have moments like these, where the guy stops the girl from leaving with a dramatic, " _Wait_!" and then there's a kiss, or a confession of love, or...

"You forgot your bag," he says, grabbing her purse out from underneath the counter and holding it up to her.

"Ugh. Nick!"

"What? You're freakin' welcome!"

—

"Can I tell you something, Cece?"

It's just Jess and Cece, and she's grateful for that, because the bar is mellower when it's just the two of them and the tips are a little better too. (The customers smell the sex on Cece and Schmidt, and then they just don't tip her, and then they rip off Jess because they start chanting about how all women suck, or whatever. It's fact.)

Cece finishes pouring a Scotch on the Rocks for a regular, and then she smiles at Jess. They're sort of friends now, and it's nice to have a girl to talk to about the little things.

This, though, is a bigger thing. "Nick is not... He has a girlfriend, right?"

Cece looks confused, and then she just shrugs. "Nick doesn't tell me shit. He tells me either useless stories or racist jokes. I don't think so, though, no. Why?"

Jess shrugs back and leans up against the counter, all her weight on her arms. "No reason."

"Oh, no, there's a reason, Jess. You don't just ask somebody else if somebody else has a girlfriend for  _no reason_. Do you -- Oh my God, are you into that?"

"Nick? What?  _No_! He's... He's  _Nick_ ," she says, scrunching her nose and shaking her head in disgust, as if 'He's Nick' is a legitimate argument. "Cece, you can't tell him I asked you that."

"Duh. Jess, it's not a problem, it's just... He wears flip-flops, and sometimes he's too lazy to pronounce his words all the way, and he also whines. A lot."

"Hey, anyone's better than my ex-boyfriend Spencer. He made me pose for a twenty-four hour still life painting once, and when he was done, all that was on the canvas was a duck. A freakin' duck!"

Cece laughs and goes, "Well..."

"Hey, wait, speaking of men... How did that date with that rich Indian dude go the other night? Nick told me about it."

"It was brief. His mom knows my mom, which is more creepy than it is endearing. Besides, I spent the whole night checking my phone. Schmidt texted me forty times about how he'd cut off his dick if I 'married brown'."

"You  _do_ know you guys are going to end up together, right? I can't be the only one who sees that."

Cece shrugs nonchalantly. "The thought of Schmidt sleeping with another girl who isn't me makes me want to cut all my hair off and die, so."

"Okay, good," says Jess, letting out a laugh. "Forget I asked you about Nick, okay? I don't need to date my boss.  _My boss_. He's my boss!"

"Wait, that's what bothers you about him?", Cece asks. "Jess, did you not hear the whole thing about the flip-flops? Is no one else bothered by the flip-flops?!"

—

Jess works her first shift alone a month into working at The Griffin, and it goes... Okay, she's bartender and she just got screamed at because there was a peanut in a glass of whiskey she just poured for a regular, and Sid tipped her with a nickel.

"Hey! Winston, remember?", Winston says, pointing at himself goofily. "A beer?"

"You got it, Winston," Jess says, holding up an index finger to him as she continues to get yelled at about the peanut thing for the tenth time.

She finally grabs Winston a beer and slides it over to him. "You're a cop, huh?", she asks, nodding at his LAPD hoodie. "Aren't there better bars than this one cops go to? I mean, you're kind of the cool guys of LA."

"I support Nick. The Griffin is his baby, and even if he never makes me pay for anything, by adorable presence makes up for it."

Jess laughs and grabs herself a beer, because the night is almost over and no one will yell at her for drinking behind the bar because no one is here. "How old was he when he opened this place up?"

"Oh, he didn't," Winston says, shaking his head, and then he pauses to take a swig of his beer. "He bought it out from the last owner and made it ten times better than it was. Like, does the toilet still flush up instead of down? Yes. Are there still obscene drawings of vaginas on that table in the back? Absolutely. But Nick works really hard to keep this place running, and I've never seen him take care of something the way he takes care of this bar. It's nice to see him try after years of not trying."

Jess wants to ask what that means  _so bad_ , but then she stops herself, because why does she want to know about Nick's life this badly anyway?

Luckily, Winston's an open book, and also a chatty lightweight. "He dropped out of law school with three semesters to go 'just because', and then Caroline left him and things got weird, but then he bought out The Griffin and it's nice to see Nick be Nick again."

They talk about everything until 4:01 A.M., until the bar is emptied out, and then Jess walks Winston to his car and gives him her number. 

"In a friend way," she says, because they spent a good hour talking about Winston's partner Aly, and how in-love he was with her and all of that. It was a good story, and Jess is rooting for them. 

"Can I tell you something before I go, J?", Winston asks her, one hand on the handle of his car door and the other on her wrist. "Nick might not tell you this, but he really loves working with you."

"That's... I like working with Nick too."

"Between you and me, I think he has something going for you, but he's too weird and babyish to ever say anything about it, so I'm going to."

"Did he -- Did he say something?", she asks, stuttering.

"I've already said too much," says Winston, and then he steps into his car and twists the keys in the ignition. "'Night, J!"

—

Jess lets The Nick Thing go, and she doesn't even really talk to him at work the next day because she's too nervous too.

"M-My stomach hurts," she lies, and Nick tells her to clock out early and give the rest of her shift to Cece. 

It's 9:07 when she grabs her coat and tries to leave, but Nick follows her into the office and goes, "Wait."

(Not another 'Wait!' moment, please.)

"Hey, are you good?", he asks her, shoving his hands into the pockets of his khakis. The office is dark, and it's just the two of them back there, and after a second he turns on the lights and looks at Jess. "I mean, you maybe said, "Pass the straws" to me today and that's it. Is something going on?"

How do you say, " _This is just how I act when I find out someone I could possibly like possibly likes me, I'm sorry, I'm a baby, please let me go home because of my 'stomach pains' and then we can forget about this forever._ "?

"I'm fine," she says, sighing a little bit under her breath. "You should go. Cece's getting killed out there alone."

"Talk to me, Jess," he begs, and he reaches his hand out and tugs at her wrist, pulling her a little closer to him. "I'm your boss, but I'm also your friend."

"And you also like me, right?", she asks. She doesn't mean to blurt it out, but it happens, and she can't take it back even though she's cursing at herself about it  _right now_.

"Wha -- I -- Do you mean  _like_ , or like, "Oh, she's cool, she plays nice songs in the jukebox and asks me how my day is everyday!"?"

"The... first one?", she says a little unsurely. "Just forget about it, though, Nick. Can I go home now?"

"Your stomach doesn't hurt," Nick says, shaking his head at her. "I saw you do that tequila shot with Javier before and you were fine."

"My stomach hurts because of that shot," she says, putting her coat on and ignoring the way Nick is still holding onto her wrist. "Can I go?"

"Jess, did -- Did someone tell you I like you? Was it Schmidt? He's such a dick, he always tries to ruin my life just because Cece went on a few dates with eligible Indian bachelors. Not my fault her mom hates Schmidt's Jewish ass so much!"

"Um." She's suddenly bad at lying, so she goes, "Maybe?" and then wrinkles her nose. "Look, I don't get why you had to have Winston do it, Nick! If you like me, you -- You could've just  _told me_!"

"I couldn't have, though," he says, his voice getting lower. He lets go of Jess's wrist and walks back around to his desk. "We work together, and I'm  _not_ pulling a Cece and Schmidt on ya', Jess, I'm just not."

"What's wrong with Cece and Schmidt?", she asks, and Nick laughs. "I'm serious! At least they're not afraid to... I don't know... like each other."

"Do you want the truth? Jess, I haven't stopped thinking about you since the minute you pranced into my bar in that little skirt with that stupid resume that I crumbled up a second after you walked away."

"Hey!"

"Sorry, but it's 2016. 'Knitting' isn't a skill, it's just dumb."

"Hey!"

"You're... You know, you're kind of my dream girl because you're nice, and you can sort-of handle your booze, and you always ask me how my days off are even when you most definitely don't want to hear about my days off. Like, "I forgot to put on pants, I ate some Ramen Noodles, I fell asleep at seven-thirty P.M."."

"I-I like how hard you work when you're here," Jess says, tugging down on her lip. "I like seeing people work hard at something, even if it doesn't always work out for them. Like... the bar could be doing better numbers-wise, and we had a flasher here last week -- he had a  _terrible_ penis, by the way., -- but you still care about this place with everything you have. I like passionate people."

"Ha. 'Nick Miller' and 'passionate' in the same sentence. Jessica, you don't mean that."

She walks a little closer to him, taking off her coat and throwing it down on his desk. "Just take the damn compliment, Nick."

Nick lets out a scruffy, "Okay, Jess", and then the next thing that happens is both of their faults and she's so sorry for doing it with her boss and he's so sorry for doing it with his employee.

"T-Take off your damn clothes," he says, helping Jess strip down to nothing but her underwear. She's hovered over his desk, and it really  _is_ hot, doing this in the office like this. (Cece and Schmidt were right, but they also need to stop having sex all over Nick's paperwork.)

Jess slides a finger underneath the band of her underwear and rips it off, and then she squirms at the immediate feel of Nick's tongue against her clit.

He licks her until she releases into his mouth, and then he stands up straight and just looks at her. They're groaning, and they're sweaty, and they just got down to business all over Nick's paperwork.

Jess clears her throat and brings Nick down to her level, his hands stopping at her bare breasts, her hands cupping the sides of his face as she sucks at the skin on his neck.

"I'm not just doing this with you because I want to do this and that's it," Nick says mid-neck kisses. Jess lets go of her hold on his face and raises an eyebrow. "What? I'm serious. I like you, but I also think you look amazing naked."

"Nick. Stop fidgeting."

"Fine, I'll shut up now."

—

They don't tell anyone what happened in the office that night, and Nick ends up letting Jess go home because of 'stomach pains' because he can't work with her after seeing her naked on his desk like that.

They make out in the office in the middle of their Friday night shift three days later, and Jess crosses off "Kiss Boss Against Door At Work In A Super Sexy Fashion" from her bucket list.

—

Jess gets a call in the middle of her shift on Saturday evening, and she runs outside to take it. 

When she gets back in, Schmidt goes, "That's the face of an unhappy woman, much how Cece looked after her date with that  _millionaire_. Yuck."

"You didn't even see me after, you idiot!", Cece yells, rolling her eyes.

"I know your faces, Cecelia, I know it wasn't a  _good one_ ," he says bitterly.

"My face...", Jess says, shaking her head, "I just got a job offer at this school I've been dying to work at since I was twenty-three."

"Oh my God!", Cece squeals, racing over to Jess and throwing her arms around her. "Jess! You better take it, you dummy!"

"I don't know how I'm supposed to tell Nick," she says, and Cece and Schmidt just look at her in silence. "I've gotten so used to working here."

"So get un-used to it," says Schmidt, slapping a rag down on the counter for dramatic effect. "Jess, be grateful you don't have to work under the Reign Of Miller anymore and go have fun teaching little brats again."

—

Jess knocks on Nick's office door and apologizes because she knows he's swamped with orders.

"All good," he says, the corner of his lips in a smirk. He waves her in and tells her to close the door but he doesn't look up from his computer.

She doesn't know what they are, but she does know that quitting on him is going to feel like a breakup, and her stomach really does hurt this time.

"I... Hey, do you need any help? Should I get Schmidt? He's really good at paperwork," Jess says, gesturing to the pile of papers in front of Nick.

"Save it. What's up, babe?", he asks, and she shouldn't get so worked up over the word 'babe', but when Nick says it... "You good? What are you, quitting on me or something?"

"Actually..."

"Oh my God, are you -- You're actually quitting? Jess, is this because we hooked up in my office a couple of times? It wasn't even sex, it was mutual, it was fun, --"

She shakes her head and tugs down on her lip. "I just got a phone call from that school I told you about once. I doubt you remember it because we were both drunk and I was rambling, but --"

"I remember. They'd call you by your first name because they don't believe in authority. There's a "Feelings Farm" and an "honesty chair" where the kids go to get disciplined, and I think there's also an actual farm with live animals. Super cool, by the way."

"You remembered," she says, impressed. "That's the one. Genevieve, the principal, she called me. She saw my resume and  _did not_ crumple it up and she loves me."

"I'm sorry about that, it's just... You don't need a fancy resume for a dive like this!," Nick argues, shaking his head. "So, you're taking it, right?"

"I told her I'd get back to her," Jess says. "I wanted to talk to you about it first."

Nick laughs under his breath and leans forward, his chair creaking. "What's there to talk about, Jess? Did you not call it your 'dream job'?"

"No, I did, I did, but I don't know! Nick, I like working here, and I've gotten better at making cocktails, and I don't do weird accents to the customers anymore."

"You totally did a Judy Garland to that group of underage high school girls the other night," he says, leveling a hand at her.

"Okay, but it freaked them out and they left, so technically I helped!"

"You always do," he says, smiling. "Jess, take the damn job. Call Genevieve and tell her you're taking the damn job."

Jess goes to pull her phone out of the pocket of her coat, and then she stops herself. "I-I won't get to see you all the time, Nick. I know it sounds stupid, but I'm so used to seeing you all the time."

"Jessica."

" _Nicholas_."

"We'll make it work. Take the damn job."

—

Her first day at her new job is rough. (That's an understatement, actually. 'Rough' is a kind word to describe the day she's had.)

She stops by the bar after and it's just Schmidt at the counter. She wants to ask for Nick, but in a subtle way, because no one knows they're  _anything_ and Jess is fine being what they are without anyone else knowing about it.

"Jess?"

Right on cue, Nick comes out of his office and bites down on his lip, and he looks like he wants to kiss her, but Schmidt is behind the bar polishing glasses to perfection and humming a Queen song, so he won't.

"My office?", he suggests, and Jess follows him back there.

"Nick," she breathes out, shutting his office door behind her.

He's already unbuttoning his shirt. "What, Jess? I assumed you wanted this to happen, so I just went for it."

"I did, I do, but I --" She shakes her head and walks up to him, sliding both of her arms around him. "We can have sex on your desk after you hire me back. I quit that stupid job."

Nick laughs and shoves a bunch of paperwork out of the way, eagerly cupping Jess's face and pulling her into him. "Oh, thank God."


End file.
